Mon.’s Devo - The Death of Saul -

Read: 1 Sam. 30; 1 Chron. 12:20-22; 1 Sam. 31; 1 Chron. 10:1-14; 1 Chron. 9:40-44; 2 Sam. 4:4; 2 Sam. 1
David and his men were rejected from fighting with the Philistines only to come home to a burnt city and no families. That is a bad day gone worse! David’s men are ready to kill David and David does what he does best - he turns to the Lord for help. God said to go after the raiders and that they would restore everything that was taken from them. These raiders were the Amelekites - the very ones that God told Saul to totally annihilate.
In today’s reading we read of two lone men who gave David information. The first was an Amelekite that was sick and had been left by his master to die. David nursed him to life and he gave David the location of the ones who stole their wives and raided their homes. This man received new life and was rewarded. The next was a man who lied to David and said that he had killed Saul, hopping for a reward. He received death. What a picture of judgment day!
We can see the generosity of the Lord in David. He insisted on giving the 200 men that didn’t have strength to go on some of the plunder as if they had gone to war, and he also shared his bounty with all the towns he had been in that had been kind to him. God’s kindness is just like this and more.
Even though the death of Saul could have been good news to David because that meant that he could now have the throne, David was sad. He had lost his best friend, Jonathan and a man who was like a father figure to him, Saul. I’m sure he would have rather it been different. In a perfect world, Saul would have welcomed David back home and given him the throne himself, but this is not a perfect world. Many times, our lives don’t have storybook endings. We have to rise above what we can’t change and accept the Lord’s wisdom. We can only change ourselves but everyone is given the gift of free will.
Lord, we mourn with David over things in our lives that didn’t turn out the way we had hoped but we trust in your unfailing love.